


Heavy Heads

by orphan_account



Category: Eddsworld - All Media Types
Genre: Alcoholism, Gen, Panic Attacks, Suicide mention, Swearing, Trans Characters, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-16 07:20:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13049241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Things would be okay, one day. For now, they made do.(Trauma isn't always quiet. Matt, Edd, and Tom deal with the aftermath.)





	Heavy Heads

**Author's Note:**

> i found this in my old documents and figured id share it, even if its way off from how i think of edd matt and tom's personalities today. anyways the end wouldve fucked anyone up even these assholes and i projected way too much onto these characters

i.

Everything seemed separated, almost, into the Before and the After.

They didn't directly discuss it. It was always vague, offhanded, enough of a quiet matter that they could pretend it hadn't happened. Because maybe if they pretended it hadn't happened, it would just clear itself from their minds, blowing away the heavy dank fog to let the light in. Like it was just the fizz on the top of the soda; time would burn it through and calm its temper.

Even when they caught each other standing still as a board, looking directly at a red sweatshirt in the Walmart clothing section, it was danced around, considered and known but not spoken. It was easier that way. Time healed all wounds, right? It would get around to stitching this one up eventually.

Matt had had all his mirrors covered in sheets before Edd had offered to cover up his black eye with some makeup. He wasn't as talkative as he normally would've been over getting a “makeover.” He had just sat there, limp as a doll, letting Edd apply foundations and powders in thick layers until his skin was almost rubbed raw. Something in Edd knew better than to push it.

In the next few days, it became routine. Matt would stop by Edd’s apartment whenever he got around to waking up, and he'd sit back to watch as clouds of dust and foundation filled the air. As time went on, the bruise faded, with Matt growing more energetic as the days passed. By the time a week had passed, it was as if nothing had happened at all. Matt was back to pestering Tom. Tom was back to telling Matt to shut the fuck up. All was well.

Or it should've been. They'd won, right? They'd defeated the enemy, concluded their story, reached the climax and solved the problem and all that. It was over.

So why didn't it _feel_ over?

 

ii.

He baked pancakes.

Pancakes were good, simple. He didn’t have to think about it. His mind could turn to mush while he baked, just focusing on the act of stirring, whisking, cracking eggs, pouring flour. It was a nice distraction for mornings when his head was static. Whenever he was left to just sit and wait for whatever he was making to finish cooking, his fingers would get antsy, and he’d usually start another dish. If he stood still long enough he’d have to start thinking again.

Matt and Tom would always come to eat when they smelled the sizzling sausages and the browning omelettes. They would chatter at him, banter at one another, help keep him occupied. It was better to be distracted than to stop and have to wonder about things. About could of, should’ve, would’ve. Noise would wash about in his ears like a distant ocean.  

Sunlight usually shone in through the window, hitting Matt’s face as he laughed at something dumb Tom had said. He would usually find himself smiling down at the pans on the stove. Matt and Tom would get to one-upping each other with breakfast puns until he thought their lungs might burst. His own lungs often found themselves wheezing under the pressure of his own laughter.

They’d sit, together, at his little table he’d found in a thrift store. Tom would always complain about being hungover loud enough to get Edd to let him bum a few ibuprofen, but when he returned from the medicine cabinet in the bathroom Matt would be sitting innocently with at least three of Tom’s bacon strips missing from his plate.

And then they would talk. Matt would excitedly talk about a cute boy he had met at a club, about how fun his part-time job at the local salon was, about a new episode of a show they all liked was coming out next Monday, and oh Edd, you have _got_ to try this new lip gloss I bought at Sephora! Tom would roll his eyes at the long rants about new toys in Matt’s novelty toy collection, but the gesture was one of affectionate exasperation as opposed to annoyance. Then, once Matt had finished, Tom would talk: he had been working on producing a song with him and some dude he knew from the internet, he had bought a new binder to replace the old one that had gotten shredded by a demon from another dimension, there had been a really sweet cat on his walk home the other day… The talk was always just idle chitchat, but it left Edd with a warm feeling in his chest.

But sometimes…

Sometimes Matt wouldn’t come to breakfast.

Sometimes Edd had to go gently push open his door, and stand in the doorway to see Matt rushing about trying to put everything in the “right place.” He always looked like a little squirrel, scurrying around, adjusting his photos, straightening his gel pens on his desk. Some days he would just be staring into one of his mirrors, trying to fix his hair to be perfect, tear tracks running down his face. Matt’s apartment always smelled like perfume and fresh laundry. It wasn’t that he was cleaning his mess, Edd thought; more that he needed things to be messy in the _right_ way. Just so, angled this and that way, making a pattern that would protect them from another explosion, another devastating betrayal. It was like a ward or a spell of protection. Matt’s fingers would always be shaking when Edd came in.

When the hurrying about had ended, Matt would collapse in the center of the room, legs giving out from beneath him violently. He looked like a marionette with its strings cut, splayed out on the carpet like that.

Edd would stand over him, quietly asking if he wanted extra sugar in his coffee. It was the easiest question he knew to break the silence without confusing Matt.

“Yes,” he’d say, a little too loudly, as if he were talking over some distant static.

And so they would go on, the same as every morning. Edd and Tom pretended not to see the way his mug would violently rattle against the tabletop when he picked it up.

The three of them couldn’t bear to stop and think for more than an instant. When they did, they’d collapse.

 

iii.

When someone in the park mentioned something about _brave soldiers_ , something in Matt seized up.

Sweat began trailing down the back of his neck, down his chapped lips and into his dry mouth. He wasn't sure why. His legs refused to keep going, keep walking, no matter how much he was yelling at them to. He had _grown_ the damn things, and he couldn't even get them to _move_. Was this how parents felt about toddlers and teenagers? Was that why he couldn't breathe? Because oh, he couldn't breathe, that certainly was a thing that was happening.

“M__t?” The word buzzed out in the middle, fading in and out of focus like static. He reached for something he could compare this to, something, _anything_ , and remembered the sound of TV censorship. That's what it was like, yes, that was it. “M__t, what's wr_ng?”

Oh god, if he couldn't breathe, he would die, right? His hands went to reach up to his throat, but when he looked down they hadn't moved an inch. This set off a thousand alarm bells in his brains, ring ring ring, ring ring ring, ring ring-

“M__t.” And now there was a hand on his arm, one that wasn't his own, and all he could think was _he's going to hit you again, he's going to hit you, he's going to HIT YOU MOVE MOVE MOVE._

He moved.

His fist swung through the air without his consent, whistling an angry tune before slamming into- something. Someone? Who?

The ringing screamed in his ears. His brain was shouting that he had to keep _hitting_ , had to _fight_ and _defend_ and-

“M__T!” His arm was shoved back. The alarms all stopped instantly, quiet as a whisper, like they were surprised at the touch.

“MATT!”

He didn't want to die.

“Oh fuck, _Matt_ , oh god are you okay, oh god damn holy shit in a basket god damn damn damn damn-”

Green filled his vision, gentle hands holding his arms, and in an instant all the fight swept out of him. His knees were limp noodles, like his grandma’s soup when she left it out on the counter for too long, sinking below the weight of his confusion. The arms held him up though. Suddenly he felt very tired, as if he could just fall asleep right then and there.

Someone- two someones, two people, who who who- oh, Edd and Tom, Edd and Tom. They were holding him up, asking him things, saying that he was okay, he was okay, he was okay. He wasn't sure if Tom was real or not, because that didn't sound like something Tom would say. But the two figures said it anyway, even as he saw blood stream from Edd’s nose, even as onlookers stared and stared and stared.

“You're okay,” said the maybe-Tom in his ear. “You're fine. Don't fucking pass out on us, Matt. If you faint right now, I swear to god I’ll kill you.”

That sounded more like him.

 

iv.

They were probably more codependent than was healthy. Well, that wasn't a _probably_ at all- it was a fact. The three of them needed each other, like water, like air. It probably wasn't a solid base for a friendship, but between them all they were like the Jenga stacking champions of hazardous moments and unhealthy relationships. It felt precarious, but they kept stacking up, holding their collective breaths as whole sections threatened to topple and collapse around their heads.

Good thing they were lucky as hell.

Edd cooked. He was honestly quite shitty at it, but Matt didn't own a stove and Tom had an eternal ban from the kitchen. He made slightly burnt eggs and pancakes that had a liquid center where the batter hadn't cooked the whole way through. Tom always made a face at the crunchy noodles hidden in the swaths of meat sauce that made up the spaghetti, but he always ate it, and sometimes he even reached for seconds. Matt had been living off microwave meals since he was a kid, so anything not from a package was brilliant in his mind.

And when Tom stumbled in at two in the morning, so drunk he could barely speak around his own angry sobs, Edd always had a freezer pizza and a crappy movie ready. He would hold his hair back when he hurled up whatever whiskey he'd chugged that night, and pop Alka-Seltzer into a glass placed where Tom would be able to see it in the morning.

He would hold Matt’s hand whenever he panicked. When Matt stopped, stood stock-still in the middle of what he was doing and stared forward with pinprick tears in his eyes, Edd would grab onto him. Trembling, Matt’s fingers would wrap around his own and squeeze so hard Edd thought his hand might burst. Eventually, when the battle in his mind was over and won, Matt would sigh, letting his fingers go limp. And Edd would always have candy in his apartment for afterward, to help both his blood sugar and his mood. He'd drag Tom out of bed and set their asses down on the couch beside him, shoving game controllers into their hands and starting up his nearly-broken Xbox. Because three was better than two, and since two was better than one, that meant the three of them together was, like, six times better than their lone selves, right?

Sometimes, though, Edd wouldn't check at their doors to make sure they had eaten at least once that day. And though Edd wasn't one to talk about forgetting to eat (he would often get so busy working on a piece of art he wouldn't sleep or shower for up to three days), Tom made sure to be the one to check in when they didn't hear from Edd. Sometimes it would just be that he was busy; that he was preoccupied, that he was intently focused on whatever thing had caught his eye. But sometimes…

Sometimes Tom found Edd sitting in his bedroom with the apartment door unlocked, hunched over a little cardboard box. On those days, he would be carding through singed photographs and scraps of burnt fabric. It always seemed to Tom that he was looking for something.

“Hey Tom,” he would say. It would always be the same monotone voice, next to emotionless. Sometimes it cracked though, breaking when he said Tom’s name.

He would never reply with “hey, Edd.” Those words were tainted now, overshadowed by a giant red elephant in the room that loomed above. Instead he would sit beside him, look inside the box even though it made him feel sick. They wouldn't talk. There wasn't a real need to.

Eventually Edd would put the box away, and Tom would order takeout and tell Matt to get his stupid ass into Edd’s apartment. They would all sit, huddled around the television screen, slurping up greasy noodles like the food would be ripped from their hands as soon as they turned away. The movie would always be comically bad in a way that Matt and Edd found hilarious for reasons that always baffled Tom.

But seeing them there, with their faces lit up by the glow of a terribly gory horror movie from the 80’s, alive and well, made the whole thing worth it.

 

v.

It was the first thing they saw when they turned on the news.

“International authorities are worried about the growing radius of the militia’s power, extending out from its hearth in Norway and beginning to infect other nations.” The reporter said it like it was some kind of disease, like it was just a bad bout of the flu somewhere in America’s shitty Bible Belt. “The world’s attention has been directed to the organization by way of a video released of their supposed commander- a man who goes by the moniker of Red Leader.”

When he looked at the screen, he felt like the world dropped out from under him.

“Hello, people of the world,” said Tord. “I am the leader of-”

“Turn it off.”

Tom couldn't seem to hear him. He was just standing, fists clenched, remote clutched tightly in his hand. Smoke appeared to be drifting up gently from his eyes, wafting up into the air at a leisurely pace.

“-you may call me by the name of Red-”

“Turn it off!”

Edd was shaking. His chest was tight, squeezing his lungs. There Tord was, on the screen, half his fucking face blown off, chewing the edge of a cigar with a smirk that said he had all the time in the world.

“-submit now or face the consequences of-”

“TOM TURN IT THE FUCK _OFF_!”

The words didn't leave Edd’s mouth. He hadn't said that.

There was the sound of breaking glass as the TV screen was shattered, shards cascading out like rain scattering to the wind. There was a shoe right where Tord’s face had been, implanted in the screen.

Tom dropped the remote.

When Edd turned to look, he saw Matt ( _brave soldier, brave soldier, who's my brave soldier_ ), standing by the counter and missing a sneaker on his left foot. He was crying.

It hurt.

“I think we’re going to need a new TV,” said Tom. It was a thing that seemed so oddly specific, that felt so pointless after what the man on the screen had been saying, that Edd couldn't help but laugh.

It made no sense, but he couldn't stop. He began to laugh so hard that tears pricked the corners of his eyes. After a few seconds he had to clutch onto the edge of the couch, beginning to cough just as much as he laughed. Eventually Matt began to laugh too, slow chuckles that intermingled with stifled sobs, until the two of them were unsure of whether they were laughing or crying.

And when Tom offered to call in a pizza, well, they couldn't exactly argue with the decision.

 

vi.

Tom caught Matt running his fingers over the memory eraser gun.

It made his stomach swirl like it was taking his liver out onto the dance floor to share a nice slow waltz. The way he was looking at the charred thing made one think he was looking at Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, all mashed together into one object. It was the gaze of a man who found God in a pack of pills.

Tom knew that look.

The thing was broken beyond repair. Fire had licked its harsh tongue across the side of it, leaving it useless for any of its original purposes. He hadn't even realized Matt had gotten it from the debris.

That look made him sick. It was the way someone looked at a noose, or a pistol with a single bullet in its chamber.

Maybe he should be subtle about this. It would be brash to run head first into the situation with no idea about how to-

“What the fuck are you doing.”

Well, that plan was fucked right up the ass.

Matt nearly leaped out of his pasty skin. The gun was quickly tucked away in the most suspicious manner possible, the red tip still sticking out behind his butt ugly green overcoat.

“Tom! Um…” He seemed to think for a minute. “What are… _you_ doing?”

He didn't even bother to quirk an eyebrow. The gesture would be wasted on him. “Well, it looks like I'm standing in your doorway, asking what the hell you were doing with that memory eraser gun.”

The heavy gulp of air Matt took in told him all he needed to know. He waited patiently as the man opened his mouth, but instead of talking he simply sat there with his mouth gaping and his face slowly turning red.

“Oh,” Matt said after a moment. That was all he said.

As the seconds passed, the air seemed to grow hotter and hotter, harder to breathe. Finally, Tom couldn't stand it anymore. “I get it.”

“You- wait, what?”

Even though Tom knew Matt was taller than him, in that instant, with him sitting in that chair curled in on himself, he looked small.

“You want to forget. You don't want to remember that shit anymore.”

“I…” Matt was fumbling, scrambling for words. “I don't know what you're talking about?”

It was more a question than a reply.

“You're not the only one who's had a gun behind their back.”

The red metal glinted in the lamplight. In a room of self-portraits, Matt seemed so very alone.

“I wasn't… I mean…”

“It doesn't work. No amount of Smirnoff or bullets to the head will keep you from remembering.”

The air felt stale, stiff, harsh. But Matt needed to understand that there wasn't an easy way out.

“It's broken, anyway.” It was barely a whisper. “The explosion…”

“Even if it wasn’t, it wouldn’t work, not really. You can’t just chase that shit away.”

Matt didn’t say anything. He had sort of expected otherwise. Maybe he had thought Matt would say, no, I was just holding it, I’m fine, and they would’ve gone back to normal. Maybe he had thought he was being silly again, paranoid Tom, _cl_ _assic stupid Tom_.

“Tom,” said Matt after a while. It was said like a question but it wasn't one. “Will we be alright?”

_No_ , Tom thought to himself, but what came out of his mouth was, “I think so.”

No more words needed to be spoken after that. Within a few minutes Matt found himself laying on Tom’s couch with a random show on, listening as Tom heated up soup in the kitchen. A gaudy checkered blanket had found its way across his legs and back, mostly because Tom _always_ kept his house at subzero temperatures. The cold burned his eyes until he found himself crying, goopy heavy tears that were like hot lava rolling down his cheeks.

The soup tasted like shit, but Tom was telling corny jokes that made him laugh as he ate it, dribbling bits of chicken broth down his chin as he giggled, so it was fine. It would be fine.

 

vii.

The bad memories kept them from doing things sometimes.

They went to see a movie, once, that they hadn't bothered to research. They usually researched their movies before they went, but it had looked harmless. Seemed harmless. Matt had been excited, really. They were going to a fancy theater, with reclining comfy chairs and IMAX 3D and all that bullshit, to celebrate Tom’s top surgery happening in a few days. The three of them had been saving up for ages to afford top surgery for them all, and Tom had drawn the shortest straw, making him the first one of them to go through with it. He was trying to hide it, but Edd knew he was excited.

Matt had decided to dress them up. Edd and Tom groaned, acting like Matt was pulling their legs, but they had a good time dressing up all nice. Within an hour they found themselves in the nicest jeans they owned and some fancy jackets Matt had somehow found in the back of their closets. Tom stuck an entire bottle of vodka in Matt’s purse, conspicuously sticking out the top, but any staff who caught a glimpse of it seemed too impressed by how little they gave a shit to say anything. Likewise, the befuddled guy at the counter hadn't tried to stop Edd from buying a dozen large sodas, not even bothering to mention that the place did, in fact, have free refills. He seemed too confused to mention it.

The floor’s ugly carpet was sticky with butter and bad decisions, but Matt was laughing and Edd was slurping soda up out of three straws at once on a bet, so they were just fine. Everything was fast and sharp and good, the three of them giddy with shaking fingers, just happy to be there as one unit. It was easy to forget it was night out, that the rest of the world was soft and quiet. They were shouting, jostling, settling restlessly into the velvety theater seats. Matt took too many selfies. Edd didn't complain about it.

Tom was already drunk by the time the ads started playing. Other people around shushed him when he talked too loud. Matt and Edd just guffawed when he drunkenly told them to fuck off. Their fingers were intertwined, their hearts beating, the three of them punching and kicking each other with the familiarity that comes from loving someone. When Tom began to throw popcorn at other people in the theater, with Matt’s legs propped up on the back of someone else’s seat, others in the room would yell, but they would always yell back. It was good and giddy and electric.

The movie started after a few minutes of all that, the lights dimming as Edd stuck a straw up his nose to see if he could suck soda up through his nostril.

Dumb ads scrolled by as Edd clutched at Tom’s shoulder, whispering bad jokes in Matt’s ear to make him laugh. The boring couple in front of them kept looking back to make faces when he whispered too loudly for their tastes. They could suck his dick. After all, this was the happiest the three of them had been in months.

There was an advertisement for cell phone plans, for cars, for lots of things Edd didn't care about. Other people came in, usually teenagers or adults like them. Was the movie R-rated? He couldn't remember.

After a while, the lights dimmed. All the shuffling around seemed to cease at once. The badly edited ads turned to movie trailers for superhero flicks and forgettable young adult films about rebellion. Matt was whispering a little too loudly in Edd’s ear about how he wanted to see such and such romantic comedy when it finally came out.

And then the movie started.

It was fine, at first. The movie was about some pasty white guy played by an actor named Chris discovering some secret powers he had within him. Generic stuff, with cheesy lines and the most basic of soundtracks.

Until the final fight scene with the villain came around.

Tom drunkenly felt Edd’s hand go stiff in his own as the main antagonist came on screen. He looked up just in time to see a man with an eyepatch ( _like the_ **_Red Leader’s_** _own eyepatch,_ said a voice in his mind) aim a gun to the protagonist’s head. In his booze-clouded haze he heard the man shout, “Goodbye, old friend!”

Just as the words registered in his mind, Edd began to shake.

Matt looked over at him, worry clearly in his eyes as he whispered Edd’s name. An explosion that rang throughout the massive theater had Edd violently flinching away from the both of them. By this point other people were looking their way, eyes like fire on their backs.

And the next thing Edd knew, they were half out the front door, his hands shaking, his body heavy, leaned across Tom’s shoulders.

Things would be okay, eventually. Probably. But for now, he was in the backseat of his cars, flinching at every time car horns went off, with his head on Matt’s legs and heaviness in his lungs.


End file.
